🍓 A single Japanese strawberry — described by food journalists as “a strawberry but make it luxury” — is now retailing for up to $50 per berry at specialty grocers in major U.S. cities, and the waiting list to purchase one at the prestigious Omakase Berry Experience in Manhattan is currently longer than the waitlist for a kidney transplant. 💸 According to a new report from the Institute for Foods That Have Simply Gone Too Far, Japanese strawberries have surged 28% year-over-year, with over 87 million social media posts celebrating a fruit that, in blind taste tests conducted by the University of Just Eating A Normal Strawberry, was indistinguishable from a regular $2-a-pound grocery store strawberry. The only difference, experts noted, was “the intentions.”
😂 The strawberries — which are grown in climate-controlled greenhouses in Japan using technology more advanced than what was used to land a man on the moon — arrive at American restaurants swaddled in individual silk pillows, each berry accompanied by a certificate of authenticity and a QR code linking to the strawberry’s “emotional origin story.” 🎌 Sommelier Chad Worthington III, of the Michelin-starred restaurant “Precipice,” recently paired a single Japanese strawberry with a $400 glass of wine and told diners the experience was “transcendent.” Three diners cried. One cited “texture.” According to the Bureau of Overpriced Small Foods, sales of luxury single-berry experiences are up 340% since January, driven primarily by people who have too much disposable income and not enough chaos in their lives. 🫐
🤯 The strawberry craze has spawned a secondary economy of related products: Japanese strawberry-scented candles ($89), Japanese strawberry “essence” water ($22 per 100ml bottle, “infused with the energy of a strawberry that has never been touched”), and a limited-edition Japanese strawberry NFT collection that sold out in 4 minutes and generated $2.3 million for a man who refuses to show his face on camera. 🍓✨ In what food critics are calling “the logical endpoint of food culture,” a Brooklyn restaurant now charges $175 for a tasting menu whose centerpiece is one half of a Japanese strawberry resting on a single grain of Himalayan pink salt. Yelp reviews are exclusively five stars, because anyone who paid $175 for half a strawberry is psychologically incapable of admitting it was a mistake.
💬 The trend has also spawned a fierce backlash, led primarily by Italian nonnas who have been growing better strawberries for free in their backyards since 1962 and are furious that nobody is making a documentary about it. 🇮🇹 Meanwhile, Nutella Peanut — a new peanut-cocoa spread — is also hitting shelves in early April, and while it costs a normal amount of money, food critics are reportedly ignoring it entirely because it does not come with an emotional origin story. “The Japanese strawberry doesn’t just taste like something,” said an unnamed food influencer with 4 million followers who charges brands $40,000 per post. “It tastes like the concept of tasting something.” Police were not called but perhaps should have been.
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